Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/105

 ECCEXTRIC OFFICIAL STATISTICS 9 1

attained notwithstanding that countless millions had in the interval been wasted in a bloody war.

We have quoted Mr. Elaine as showing how even the brightest minds have been misled, and through them the public, by these contributions of the United States government to social science.

How greatly Mr. Elaine was deceived may be seen from the remarks of Superintendent Walker in the Census of i8jo.

It will be easily gathered from the remarks already submitted that it is the belief of the superintendent that the estimates of the true value of prop- erty at the census of 1860 were made generally without any appreciation of the principles which should govern in the treatment of the subject, and that the results were for nearly all the states defective, while for some the state- ments of value were so far below the fact as to be unworthy of publication.

That the somewhat greater difference between the estimates of true value and assessed value in 1860 than in 1850 may have been due to a closer approximation of the true value of assessed property is possible, though it seems likely that in a decade of such rapid development as was that of the fifties the assessments failed to keep pace with the actual increase of values. Whatever of incomparability there may have been between the census esti- mates of "true value" for 1850 and 1860, it is evidently slight in comparison with the degree of incomparability between the estimate for 1860 and those of the succeeding censuses. Yet while quick to see the impropriety of a comparison of incomparable statistics which might seem to indicate a prosperous condition in a period of comparative commercial freedom, Mr. Gannett was entirely blind to the impropriety of comparisons that grossly exaggerated the apparent increase of wealth during a period of tariff restriction. Here seems the great trouble regarding our census statistics, that they have been intrusted to politicians anxious to furnish figures to support a theory instead of to econ- omists seeking facts from which to formulate theories.

To Mr. Gannett's mind an increase in the value of property of nine billions in the decade 1850-1860 is so great as to seem incredible, while an increase from 14 billions (omitting slave values) in 1860 to 30 billions in 1870 and nearly 44 billions in